25 Lateral Moves for Technical Communicators

By Sandhya

A blog published in the STC (Society for Technical Communication) India Indus newsletter about a decade ago. Republished at the request of many technical writers.

If you’re perfectly happy being a technical writer and love what you do, don’t read this article. Read it if you are hankering for more possibilities other than moving up the career ladder in the individual or management path. The good news is that there are a lot of lateral growth options. Here are 25 of them. There could be many more. Please add your comment on this blog with more suggestions.

Content

For those who are interested in continuing to pursue a line in writing and language, but are curious to know what else a technical writer could branch out into:

Technical editor
Instructional designer
Content writer
Multimedia scriptwriter
Game writer
Marketing communications
Corporate communications
Technical journalist
Medical transcriptionist
Usability professional

Design

For those who are fascinated by visually designing information and would like to specialize in that area:

Information designer
Web designer
Graphics designer
Multimedia designer
Animation designer
Game designer

Technical management

For those who enjoy managing projects and information, but are looking beyond the standard documentation manager or lead role:

Product or Marketing manager
Program manager
Knowledgebase manager

Tools

For those who like to tinker and troubleshoot, and the technical side of things capture their fancy:

Production or Infrastructure engineer
Web developer
Multimedia developer
Game developer

And finally, sharing information with others – 24. Trainer or 25. Facilitator

That’s quite a list. And this doesn’t include more options available in other regions such as Indexer or Legal editor. Or a complete transition into another area such as a Tester or a Trainer. There may be many more when you start exploring and searching.

Now, let’s talk about these roles. You probably have a fair idea about a lot of these choices, so I’m expanding in those areas which may be new to some and commenting on others.

Technical editor: Highly interested in grammar, usage, and the linguistic aspect of documents. Need to have good people skills to work with writers to improve books.

Instructional designer: Develop curricula and course material on soft skills and technical subjects. Preferably trained in instructional design and adult learning methodologies.

Content writer: Could be a fun option for those who do not have the patience for long documents. The challenge? Deadlines are shorter and need to constantly have ideas.

Multimedia scriptwriter: Almost like writing for the movies. Need to create the scene, dialog and actions for a multimedia product. Understanding the multimedia development tools and what is expected from a script would be useful. Also a course in script writing.

Game writer: Someone who writes narrative designs, dialogue and scripts for games. People who have a flair for creative writing and like movies, graphic novels and games gravitate to this field. Can go on to become game designers and even producers.

Marketing communications: Write marketing collateral. Need to understand product messaging and convey it appropriately through brochures, white papers, case studies and such. A flair for language and skillfully choosing the right words is required.

Corporate communications: External and internal (employee) communications. Newsletters, branding, company messaging. Less technical content.

Technical journalist: Reporting or writing for computer magazines. Or being a Technology Correspondent or writer in a regular daily newspaper. Or having a column in a magazine.

Medical transcription: Converting the audio reports of doctors into text. Can work from home or on a contract basis.

Usability professional: “Good user experience (UX) is an effective synthesis of usability, content, functionality and branding. Language and writing are key to all. Labels and text are the first things a user responds to. Functional narratives and user stories capture and communicate the needs. Language conveys the brand essence and connects with the users’ emotions and trust.” – Sudhakar Damadaraswamy, Usability Expert

Information/Layout/Production designer: Design the layout of documents and any other technical documentation collateral. Create the templates in the documentation tool such as Adobe FrameMaker or any other. Decide fonts and look-and-feel.

Web designer: Design the web layouts including colours, fonts and look-and-feel. Can be used for web sites, online documentation, elearning or any other online content.

Graphics designer: Manual and electronic art. Flair for sketching, graphic tools and understanding technical concepts. Reducing a 1000 words to a picture.

Multimedia designer: Artistic. May need to sketch and create scale models, take care of sound, lighting, costumes, props and scenes. Used to create online videos and kiosk applications.

Animation designer: Similar to multimedia design. Specialising in creating cartoons and providing animations for movies.

Games designer: Games designers lead the effort to create game design, from concept to implementation. They can do mockups and work with games writers.

Product or Marketing manager: Many technical writers gain in-depth knowledge of products and have a good customer perspective. For them, moving into product management or marketing could be a natural progression.

Program manager: “The role of a Documentation Program Manager is challenging. The Doc PM helps to ensure documentation projects run successfully, smoothly, and on schedule. Although a Doc PM does not necessarily have people to manage, the person needs to be able to exercise influence over several writing teams and different engineering groups. This can also be a springboard to move to traditional doc mgmt roles or even engineering PM roles. – Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Documentation Manager

Knowledgebase manager: Coordinating work of writers and other contributors contributing articles and pieces of information into the knowledgebase.Working out the strategy and method of information reuse.

Production or Infrastructure engineer: Developing, maintaining and administering documentation infrastructure, templates, and tools. May require programming, scripting and technical skills in the environment used.

Web developer: Developing content and graphics-rich web sites using web programming skills.

Multimedia developer: Developing the multimedia application using specialized applications.

Games developer: Developing the games. Encompasses programming, sound engineering, testing.

Trainer: Often technical writers have a combination of good content organization and presentation skills. A combination of these skills can result in a career as an instructor.

Facilitator: Conducting training and workshops towards specific team and organizational goals.

What next?

Discovered an area or areas of interest? Find out more about it. Google. Talk to industry experts. Identify mentors in these areas. Create a development plan to acquire skills in new areas and work out a path to get to your target role.

You may not need to completely transition into another job. Maybe there’s a project or a task or an initiative in your team or you can propose some. Maybe layering an additional specialization can add fun and interest to your current job.

Do talk to your managers. Involve them or keep them in the loop. They can steer you towards potential opportunities.